Hyväksymispäivämäärä

Tiivistelmä

The Internet, as we know it, is transforming again. Since its creation in the 60's, popularization in the late 80's to the information society of today, the next step will set humans as the minority users of the Internet. This is because of the Internet of Things (IoT). In the near future and already today, objects are equipped with the ability to communicate over the Internet and will accommodate the majority of traffic over the Internet. With added senses, such as seeing and hearing, objects are able to produce information for new innovative purposes. An object with the ability to sense and communicate over the internet is in this research defined as a smart object/service. It brings users service-like experience and enables automatized everyday tasks. This change will affect our lives for good.

In light of the above, the purpose of this research is to explore and analyze the customer perspective to smart object/services made possible by the IoT. The purpose is achieved through research questions aimed to explore first insight from a specific group of future adopters, to whom the age of Internet and technology is no anomaly. This research is qualitative and its philosophic foundation built on interpretivism. The data is gathered utilizing a questionnaire where respondents are asked to describe their ways of using three smart object/services.

For this research a theoretical synthesis is built based on former literature on IoT and research conducted utilizing technology acceptance model and its extensions. First, IoT is explained in its current form and development phase. Second, smart object/service attributes are described using examples to describe the phenomenon. Third, the technology acceptance model (TAM) and its extensions form the theoretical synthesis around studies conducted of perceptions. Three aspects of perceptions are used: perceived usefulness, relative advantage and perceived risk. In the concluding chapter, a revised synthesis is presented.

Based on this research, two major findings arise from the data in relation to the theoretical synthesis. First, smart object/services are seen to improve the everyday life within the group of respondents, thus supporting the relative advantage perception. Also, perceived usefulness was closely interconnected to it, even though the lack of trialability. Second, the perceived risks were high to the extent that was surprising. Especially reliability and safety & security aspects seem to affect respondents. The findings show that further analysis of perceived risk and its dimensions needs to be conducted. Based on the results as managerial implications, producers need to take into account the high risk perceptions and focus on trust building as part of innovating smart object/services.